


Good people all, this Christmas time

by consultingwives (westminsterabi)



Category: Sherlock (TV), Sherlock Holmes & Related Fandoms
Genre: Christmas, Christmas fic, Established Relationship, F/F, FemJohn, Femlock, Fluff, John's POV, Sherlock's POV
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-12-13
Updated: 2015-12-13
Packaged: 2018-05-06 14:22:33
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,200
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5420369
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/westminsterabi/pseuds/consultingwives
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Sherlock hates Christmas; or at least, that's what she tells John. Fluff.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Good people all, this Christmas time

**John:**

 

Christmas has always been one of my favorite holidays. I don’t understand why Sherlock—I have _never_ understood why Sherlock—has such an antipathy towards it. I suppose that any kind of sentimentality is essentially opposed to what she considers the most important of things, and that, as they say in _Love Actually_ and so many other clichéd movies, as they repeat across tropes and media,

 

Christmas is a time for being with the people you love.

 

**Sherlock:**

 

I don’t understand why John loves this damn holiday so much. It’s just a time for sentimentality, for all of Christendom to stress themselves out and act as if they haven’t inflicted the whole thing upon themselves. Because that’s what they’ve done. They’ve inflicted it upon themselves, by trying to one-up each other with gifts and outspend each other. It’s a ridiculous, western, capitalist ritual that I quite frankly couldn’t give fewer damns about.

 

The whole thing is truly absurd and, in the end, entirely _not worth it._ Honestly.

 

**Gina Lestrade:**

I always wondered how Sherlock felt about the whole Christmasthing, but now that John’s told me I guess that I know definitively. She hates it. She _beyond_ hates it, which seems to me a little peculiar but not out of character, in the end. The way that she spits out the word “sentiment” should have told me enough, because a lot of Christmas is about sentiment. You know, watching _Bridget Jones’ Diary_ and getting hammered with someone you love. Or someone you used to love, as it may be. I guess Sherlock has a point.

 

**Sherlock:**

John asked me this morning why I hated Christmas so much. Probably because she’s hiding a gift for me in one of two places, and as soon as she leaves I’m going to find out where and what, because she knows enough about me to be able to conceal the _what._ She may not be (very) clever but she’s certainly crafty.

 

What bothers me most about this whole Christmas thing is that if she wanted to buy me something, she should just do it when she feels like it, instead of waiting for this arbitrary date (Jesus of Nazareth wasn’t even _born_ on December 25, for god’s sake; pun intended). But I suppose it is…awfully nice of her. I know it was expensive, from the way she’s demurred about it. And one or two other deductions. I wonder what she bought me. Maybe I’ll wait to find out. Maybe she’ll notice that I’ve figured out where it is, and she’ll hand it off to Lestrade. Lestrade, who would probably give the secret away immediately. I should drop a hint.

 

Get a grip on yourself.

 

**John:**

I got Sherlock something really nice, but I swear that if I write it down somewhere she’ll be able to deduce it. She hasn’t got laser vision, but I swear she’s close to it, and I’m not taking any chances. Do you know how hard it is to keep a secret from _Sherlock Holmes?_ Besides, if she really wants to know, she can just ask Mycroft. She could check the security footage from the stores, and bam, Sherlock could know. No, it’s better this way. I won’t write it down, I won’t even think it within her vicinity, because who knows. She might have got dipped in a toxic vat of who knows what when she was a child; she might be a mind-reader. That would certainly explain a lot.

 

**Sherlock:**

Carol singers. Dressed-up old men, parading down Oxford Street. I suppose that I myself must admit that it makes a pretty picture, with the gentle snowfall tonight, but at the same time it bothers me because it’s all a farce. And not a well-planned one, either. Somehow we’ve managed to screw up even the holiday that’s supposed to be about feeling good, at least if Dickens is anything to go by. I truly hated that sodding book. Ridiculous religious propaganda.

 

Well, I want no part of it. The whole thing is just one huge inconvenience. So often the best cases, plum cases, come on Christmas Day, and with barely any cabs, and the tube shut down, the whole thing becomes terribly tiresome. I will be bitter about this until the day that I die.

 

I didn’t check to see what John bought me. I think that she would be bothered if I weren’t surprised. She knows what real surprise looks like—not feigned.

 

**John:**

I returned home this evening to find my gift surprisingly undisturbed. And I know because I set a camera up in what used to be my room and checked the recording afterwards. Unless she’s even craftier than I thought she was, the footage is clean. I’m surprised. She must have known it in my dresser—or I could see her deducing underneath the bed, because that’s definitely more her own style. And yet she left it there. Maybe she genuinely wants to be surprised. If so, I’m getting to her. I couldn’t be more delighted.

 

**Sherlock:**

John cleaned the fridge tonight. She must be pleased about something—it couldn’t have anything to do with me, not that I can think of. And yet she cleared out the putrefying fingers that I’ve been done with for weeks now, and the container of yoghurt that I’ll admit, had no experimental purpose. Unless you count watching John’s olfactory revulsion every time she opened the refrigerator as an “experiment”. In which case, I suppose the yoghurt would count.

 

She was adorable, screwing up her face as she threw mouldy bag after mouldy bag of food and other unidentifiable substances into the bin.

 

 _Well, darling, are you going to help me?_ She called over from the kitchen, but I told her I was watching BBC1 and she giggled and left me alone. Good mood. I wonder what could have happened at work on the day before Christmas Eve to make her so buoyant.

 

I bet she got me a strap-on. (Or rather, got herself a strap-on. To use _with_ me.)

 

**John:**

When Sherlock starts making all kinds of cock jokes I know that she’s on the wrong track, which is exactly what I want.  She’s honestly the dirtiest, most tasteless girlfriend I’ve ever had, and god, do I love her for it.

 

_I need you to help steady this microscope, yes, put your hand around the shaft…right there._

She’s wonderful, brilliant, incredible, sexually depraved, and _entirely wrong_ about what I got her for Christmas. Maybe she wishes I had gotten us a strap-on. I really must look into that.

 

**Sherlock:**

Well, she didn’t get me a strap-on. John is like an open book and her look of delight when I asked her to hold the _shaft_ of my microscope (it was all I could do to keep from laughing) was enough to tell me it was the wrong track. Looking would be cheating. I’ve decided that John isn’t good enough to eradicate _all the clues._ So we’ll start with what I know:

 

  *       It’s expensive, over a hundred quid. Duly noted because of her own refusal to talk about it.
  *       Something she’s desperate to keep under wraps, so nothing obvious. So far, so clear.
  *       She’s keeping it in her dresser, which means it can’t be very big.
  *       Or is it under her bed?
  *       Jewellery? She knows I don’t wear jewellery.



 

I really must figure this out.

 

**John:**

Two days before Christmas and my brilliant girlfriend _still_ doesn’t know what I’m getting her. I would call that mission accomplished. We have delightful sex the night before Christmas Eve and I would call that enough of a present for me, and I know her Scrooge-y self definitely hasn’t bought me something. But the sex is great. I love the sex. I love _her._ And she might be a killjoy, but I love her just the way she is. After all, we’re not fucking on a bed of holly. I really don’t care.

 

Fine, I do care. But not enough to worry about it.

 

**Sherlock:**

Christmas Eve, and she still hasn’t let her guard down. Books, maybe? Some rare first edition of my favourites? Some marginally illegal chemicals that I haven’t been able to get my hands on? I’m just guessing at this point. She’s definitely pawned the thing off on Lestrade at this point. It’s snowing today, and it reminds me of what I _do_ like about Christmas—the snow, the way that the city looks decked out in lights. Not the cheesy ones, but the pretty ones. The snow, which I’ll admit doesn’t have anything to do with Christmas.

 

The snow, when I wake up next to John, and the flat outside the covers is toasty warm, and the snow is falling outside while a lock of blonde hair falls over her face, and I pad over to the kitchen to make coffee. I never got her anything. It’s nine a.m. Harrods will open at ten.

 

I leave the coffee unmade, and I’m rushing out into the snow. How could I be such a blind idiot?

 

**John:**

I don’t know where Sherlock is when I wake up, only that the bed is cold and she’s been gone for a little while. I expect her to be making coffee, but she’s not in the kitchen either. I find my gift still undisturbed upstairs. So where could she be?

 

I send her a text. _Where are you?_

 

 _Out,_ comes the reply. She’s ridiculous. I love her.

 

_Out where?_

 

 _Surprise,_ she texts back tersely.

 

It’s an hour before she gets home, flushed, snow stuck in her black hair, triumphant, with a garment box stuck under her arm.

 

I tell her that my deductive powers might not be quite as sharp as hers, but that I can tell she’s bought me clothes. She scoffs and runs to her room, presumably to put said garment box away.

 

**Sherlock:**

Caught in the act. Not like John has any idea what I bought her. _Clothes_ hardly narrows it down that much. It makes me happy, anyway. I did buy her something, and she can’t say that I didn’t. I’m going through the Christmas motions; I’ve gotten into the spirit—

 

Damn.

 

This was her plan all along, wasn’t it?

 

**John:**

I can’t believe she bought me a gift. I might have been trying to get her into the Christmas spirit, but I never expected that she’d go out and buy me something. I thought that she was way too dense for that, but clearly not. Because here’s my beautiful _girlfriend_ ( _girlfriend!_ ) standing here, looking guilty as hell because she’s been caught in the act of actually doing something in the spirit of the season. She’s done it. _I’ve_ done it. I’ve finally convinced my curmudgeon of a girlfriend ( _girlfriend!_ ) to participate in this grand holiday gesture.

 

We spend the rest of the day boozed out on snowballs, watching campy movies. I do finally wrangle her into watching _Love Actually,_ which I think that she secretly enjoys.

 

Come the evening, I finally walk up to my old bedroom and pull out the small white box I’ve been harbouring for the past few days. I plop down next to her on the sofa and hand it to her.

 

“Merry Christmas.”

 

“Jewellery?” she asks, surprised. “But I ruled that out…”

 

“Not this piece of jewellery, you dunce.”  

 

She pulls the ribbon off, and delicately removes the lid. Her stunned expression tells me nothing, but when she cracks a smile and leans over to kiss me, I know that I’ve done well.

 

“Lestrade’s idea,” I say.

 

“Should have known,” she says, her voice muffled, as she leans in for a kiss.

 

She pulls the pendant out of the box—an anatomically correct heart, cast in sterling silver. When Lestrade saw it online, she texted me right away and told me that if I had the money, I needed to give this to my girlfriend, that it was exactly her kind of thing that Sherlock would swoon for. I ask her if she needs help, and she allows me to do the clasp.

 

“I thought you’d got me sex toys,” she says.

 

“I know,” I say.

 

**Sherlock:**

I can’t describe how much I love the pendant. I don’t wear jewellery, not normally, but this is different. I’m actually a romantic sod at heart, and John herself _is_ my heart. So now I can keep her close at all times. It’s beautiful, and I can’t believe she was thoughtful enough—or that Lestrade was thoughtful enough—or that the two of them were thoughtful enough to collude on this. By comparison, my gift is embarrassing. I dash over to where I’ve put it and run back to the sitting room.

 

John opens it and starts giggling. It’s an absolutely heinous reindeer jumper, exactly the kind of thing that John wears all the time. I love her. I love this pendant. I hope she likes it.

 

“I love it,” she says, and scoots over to give me a big, sloppy kiss. “And you say you hate Christmas. Now we know the truth.”

 

“Don’t you go letting on,” I tell her, kissing her again.


End file.
